Prayers
by redheadbombshell
Summary: Everyone has their conversations with God, but what does he hear when they speak to him? Story better than summary, Rated M for some sad situations and language
1. Nick

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from CSI or any of the plot things that I have taken and put in this story, CBS Does!_

_**Nick's Prayer**_

Lord, if you're listenin' it's Nick. I need to ask you a huge favor, but I don't know how.

They said she's been kidnapped, Lord, she's only five years old.

If I don't find her, God, I don't know if I'll be able to live with myself.

You were with me when I was rescued, I need you to be with her.

Please don't be ready to take her up to Heaven just yet, she's got her whole life ahead of her.

A life full of birthday parties, friends, school, everything a child is supposed to look forward to.

All I can ask is that you let her know that everything's gonna be alright.

Let her know that even though it's dark, it's cold, she's afraid and some sick weirdo's gotten ahold of her,

tore her out of her Mommy and Daddy's arms,

That I am going to do everything I can, with you by my side, to help bring her home.

It's not her time yet, Lord. She's just a little girl.

Please, please, please don't let it be her time yet, we're so close to finding her,

So close to letting her get back to whatever kind of normal life she can have after something like this.

I'll run as far as the ends of the Earth,

I'll swim leagues and leagues of oceans, lakes, seas

I'll drive from one end of this lonely, desolate desert to the other.

God, I will go through the Gates of Heaven and the Fires of Hell to find her.

All I ask is that I find a victim and not a body when I get there, all I ask

Is that you keep her alive so I don't have to tell them.

Her mom, Her dad, Her little brother, Her older sister,

That even though I tried my hardest, that little girl's not coming home.

Not tonight, not ever again.

All I ask is that you keep her alive.


	2. Catherine

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or plot things I have taken from CSI, CBS does._

_**Catherine's Prayer**_

God, I don't know what to do with her. She's staying out all night, alone,

those streets are dark, those streets are dangerous, I should know

I see girls her age all the time, beaten, bruised, broken.

Dead.

She doesn't believe me when I tell her she could end up just like them

God, it's ten o'clock, and no, I don't know where my child is.

Maybe I'm a bad person, a bad mother, a bad everything else.

But I love her more that anything, and sometimes I don't know if you can protect her out there.

I don't know if I can protect her out there.

I've seen plenty of teenage girls that could have used your help

They litter my crime scenes, their bruised faces forever etched in my memory

Every one of those girls is Lindsay

I'm afraid God that one day she'll be at one of those blood spattered scenes in the desert.

I'm so afraid.

Afraid I'll have to call my mother and tell her what happened.

Afraid I'll show up to a DB and her limp, lifeless body will be staring back at me

Afraid I'll have to go into the morgue and identify my daughter

Afraid that I will break down at any second if she doesn't walk through that door

Afraid that because I couldn't keep her safe her blood will forever stain my hands

I have enough on my conscience God.

I don't need the pain of having to hold my daughter close as her life has slipped away from her

Her skin a blue pallor, body covered in big purple bruises

Her eyes, wide in horror

Her blood on the floor

Her blood on her body

Her blood on the walls

Her blood on my clothes as I'm begging you and pleading with you to just give me more time with her.

One more decade.

One more year.

One more month.

One more week.

One more day.

One more hour.

One more minute.

One more second.

One more moment.

One more time to tell her she should have listened,

I was only trying to protect her.

I was only trying to save her.

One more time to tell her that she is my whole world.

My whole existence

My whole universe

Almost a grown woman, yet forever will be the blue eyed baby in my arms.

Keep her safe, bring her home.

Because if I lost her, I would lose everything I have ever had.


	3. Sara

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I don't own any characters or plot things I have taken from CSI, CBS does. This chapter takes place during "Dead Doll"_

_**Sara's Prayer**_

God, I don't care if you think it's my time or not.

I am not ready to die just yet.

I've got too much to do, too much to say,

too many people to tell that I love

I refuse to go down like this.

My arm is broken, my spirit is not,

I can't fucking breathe.

The water is starting to fill up in this tiny little space

I already fucking told you that I refuse to go down like this.

Sometimes, I question if you even exist,

I question if you're looking out for me.

You don't seem to be looking out for all the people I've seen on this job.

Where were you when all those people needed you?

Where are you now?

Were you watching?

Were you watching as I left the strip mall?

Were you watching as I walked, a false sense of security out to my car?

Were you watching when she called out my name?

When she tased me?

When she threw me in her trunk?

When I fought for my life?

What about when she drugged my water?

When she put me under this car?

Are you watching me struggle to breathe?

Watching me fight for my life, clawing, scratching grasping

For every last gulp of air I take in?

I hope you're not watching me right now

If you are, you're sick, sadistic, you are not...

You are not the kind loving God my daddy told me about before he died.

You're the God that took away my parents.

The God that watched and did nothing while I endured years and years of child abuse.

You're the God that's watching me lay under here and fight for everything I have left.

I will live to see Gil Grissom another day.

I refuse to go down like this.


	4. Greg

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or plot things from CSI, CBS does_

_**Greg's Prayer**_

God, it's Greg. Greg Sanders.

Just in case you've forgotten me.

I can't go on.

I need you to send me a sign. Anything.

Make me go on living because I just can't see the reason.

I can't stop seeing his face.

I see him when I close my eyes.

I see the huge rock in his hand.

I see the pain on his mother's face...

when someone had to tell her that I hit her little boy with my car.

Justifiable Homicide in The Line of Duty

Is it justified, God?

Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Thou SHALT not KILL.

I killed.

I killed him.

Was it justified?

He nearly killed those people, he nearly killed me.

He drug me out of my car,

He hit me til I almost couldn't feel pain anymore.

He hit me til I thought he had killed me.

I remember laying there on the ground, the rest of the team seeing me like that.

I was so ashamed.

Sara stroked my face, she made me feel like I had it all.

And now I don't even have that.

She was my angel.

She was my princess.

She was my whole entire reason for living.

She has Gil.

She doesn't need me.

I prayed to you every single night,

that I would give up my place in Heaven,

Just to have the chance to let her be mine.

For one second.

Now I'm praying for something entirely different.

I don't want you to deliver my angel to me.

I want you to save me from my self.

These bottles of prescription pain meds are looking far too appealing.

I just want to swallow the whole damned thing.

But I can't.

I have something to live for,

I have to have something to live for

Even if I can't see it.

I'm too scared to do it.

I'm scared someone would get called out to the scene and the team would see me like that.

If I were alive, I'd be so ashamed.

I'm afraid it'd be Sara that would find me.

Sara always found me.

She found more in me than I knew I had in myself.

I used to close my eyes and see her.

I'd sell my soul for a chance to dance with the stars, her in my arms.

Now I close my eyes, and I don't see her anymore.

I see him.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not kill.

I killed.

I killed him.

Is it too late for forgiveness?

Is my soul done for?

I'll keep on living, I have to keep on living.

I want to.

I need to .

I have to.

Someone else will need me one day.

They called me hero

They told me I was innocent.

Justifiable Homicide in The Line of Duty.

It wasn't justified.

It will never be justified.

But I can't seek redemption

If I don't have a life to redeem.


	5. Warrick

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or plot things from CSI, CBS does_

_**Warrick's Prayer**_

God, my marriage is falling apart, my life is spinning out of control.

I work long hours.

I don't come home.

I don't see her for days at a time sometimes.

I thought she knew my job was my life, that this was my purpose for you putting me here.

I guess she doesn't.

And while my job is part of it, it certainly isn't all I've done wrong in her eyes.

In my eyes.

This place is driving me crazy, the temptation to go wrong is everywhere

In the bright lights.

In the poker tables.

In the sports betting bars.

In the slot machines.

It's like battling demons directly in the pits of Hell.

They've got the home field advantage and sometimes, I seriously doubt this is a game I can win.

God, someone lost their life because of me.

Because of my addiction.

There's not one single day of my life that I don't think about Holly.

It's all my fault.

I'm surprised I didn't lose my job.

I should have lost so much more.

I did lose so much more.

I lost my heart, my soul.

I wish I could just get the chance to see Holly one more time.

To tell her how sorry I am.

To tell her that I would gladly take her place if I could.

She was so young.

So bright.

So happy.

She reminds me a lot of how I used to be.

Her bright eyes.

Her soft, brown curls, tied up back in a ponytail,

I will never forget the way Holly looked in a million years.

I'll remember that until the day I die, til I draw my last breath on this Earth,

She had so much to live for.

And some punk ass shot her with her own gun.

Shot her while I was placing a bet.

While I was supposed to be watching her.

While I was supposed to be there, helping her.

and I was placing some motherfucking bet.

She lost her life to my addiction.

I have lost my life to this stupid addiction

That's two lives lost.

How many more have to be destroyed

Before I can finally quit?


	6. Grissom

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or plot things from CSI, CBS does_

_**Grissom's Prayer**_

I don't know if you exist.

I can't scientifically prove it.

I can't scientfically disprove it.

I can however hope that you are here, listening to me.

Because I need someone to talk to.

I can't talk to anyone else about it,

I don't trust people all that much.

But if you're the Supreme Being everyone says you are,

then maybe this is a good idea.

God, Am I going to die alone?

I can't let anyone in, not even her.

I push her away, she keeps coming back.  
I don't know why, there's no science to explain matters of the heart.

Maybe it would just be easier if I had never fallen in love with her.

I see so many deaths in my line of work.

Sometimes, I doubt if it's worth taking these risks.

I see all kinds of destruction, despair in this world.

I see women, beaten to death by their husbands.

Children, raped, kidnapped, tortured and killed by complete and total strangers.

Young people have their lives snuffed out before their lives could really begin.

It affects all of us in this job, each in different ways but it does.

Nick goes on fighting, determined more than ever to do what he calls Your work.

Catherine shelters her daughter, protecting the one last ounce of hope and goodness in her life.

Sara goes on fighting, hoping no one will have to live the live she has lived.

Warrick shuts himself away, in long hours, in casinos, numbing the pain.

And Greg, his bright optimism taken away, his spirit seemingly crushed under the wheel of pessimism,

Under the wheel of what life really is like.

And me?

What of me?

I'm sure you already know, but it would do me good to speak the words.

I pour myself into work, into experiments, into making everything an exact science.

To explain why things work the way they work, instead of trying to explain why people do the things they do.

I don't have any use for people anymore. I don't understand them.

I don't want to understand.

Because if I had figured out why everyone destroyed everything they saw around them,

All that everyone says you created,

It would make me want to hide away even more, out of fear.

Fear of becoming just like them.

Fear of becoming a target for one of them.

Fear of becoming a prisoner of my nature.

But I'm already a prisoner.

I'm a prisoner to my job.

To my life's work that seems neverending.

I'm a prisoner to the will of all the victims,

trying to find justice when sometimes there's none to be had.

I'm a prisoner of my own mind.

My faulty logic, my fear of any kind of human emotion, a prisoner of rational thought.

Is any thought rational anymore?

I'm a prisoner of fear.

Too much has been taken away out of this world.

People lose their lovers

Lose their children

Their spouses,

Mothers, Fathers,

Aunts, Uncles, Cousins,

Friends, even best friends.

Everyone has to lose something,

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

I can't lose Sara.

It would tear me up inside

Every bit of humanity in me would die if she were taken.

I let her go.

I can't lose Sara,

Because she isn't really mine to lose.


	7. Dr Robbins

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or plot things from CSI, CBS does_

_**Doctor Robbins' Prayer**_

God, sometimes I wonder why you gave us free will.

This can't be how you intended it,

To have children murdered in the streets,

To have people kidnap other people,

Kill them with no real thought as to why.

Kill them for trivial things.

Possessions.

Money.

Revenge.

None of those a good reason,

And yet, more people end up on this cold slab of metal in front of me

For those exact same reasons.

I have to take them apart, piece by piece,

Try to find some reason why they're laying here on this table,

And not out in the world.

Playing with their children,

Going on dates,

Spending time with the people they love,

Enjoying spending time in the park,

They will never get to do these things again.

I have more people come in on my table each and every day

The numbers seem to grow

People are just walking crime statistics in this city

The City of Sin

The City of Murdered Children

Of broken dreams,

Lost money,

This is the point of no return, where you lose your faith in the goodness of humankind.

Who knows how many bodies are out there?

Alone, no more than a mere skeletal frame, buried under miles and miles of desert,

Killers go free every day, and we never even know it.

There has to be some kind of reason.

There is no reason.

No good reason anyway.

And yet, I continue on, an old man, withered and gray.

You have blessed me.

I lost my legs, but not my life,

You kept me here for a purpose, to help bring those responsible to a fate they deserve.

I feel incredibly grateful for the life you have given me.

I cannot stand without the use of my cane,

But I can stand firm on my faith, my principles, my beliefs,

The never wavering sense of right and wrong that you have blessed me with.

And I am glad to make a difference, to aid this cause,

Even if I do not understand the reason why this cause exists to begin with.

It's a little disheartening,

But I will not quit.

I will not falter.

Even though sometimes, I wish I could.

All I want to know, when you call me up there, to stand in your presence and be judged with the rest of human kind,

All I want to know is why.

Why people keep ending up here with bullet holes in their heads, lacerations across their necks,

Visible signs that they were taken out of this world by a force other than the natural way they were supposed to die.

I can search through the viscera, in the brain, the chest cavity,

I can pick apart this body piece by piece and find why they stopped breathing,

But never why they died.


	8. Jim Brass

Prayers

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or plot things from CSI, CBS does_

_**Captain Brass's Prayer**_

I don't get it.

I always feel so nervous when I get one of these calls.

Another man has killed another prostitute.

God, people don't realize that they're people.

That hooker is someone's mother,

Someone's sister,

Someone's aunt,

Someone's daughter.

Please, God. Please. Don't let it be my daughter.

She never told me she moved here,

I saw her out one night,

She looked like hell.

Her eye was bruised, oval bruises on her neck,

I'm a cop, I know what that means.

Someone, some pimp, some fucker that doesn't understand that she's my little girl,

Had choked the ever living shit out of her.

I wanna know who that guy is.

And I'd like to spend ten minutes with him in a room with no witnesses.

She walked up and down these streets looking for an easy way out.

Some quick, dirty money.

Jersey, they call her.

They don't call her by her name. Her name ain't Jersey, asshole.

It's Ellie. Ellie Brass.

My Daughter.

Not your cheap thrill.

I can't get her to listen to me.  
She won't let me right the things I've done wrong.  
I'm a divorced man,

I'm not a saint. Not even close.

I've done a lot of things wrong, God.

But I've never done wrong by her, I've always loved my darling baby girl.

I've asked for her forgiveness.

I've asked for your forgiveness.

I'm scared I'll never get either one.

Catherine sees the look in my eyes as I leave the lab.

She knows.

She knows the deep fear I have that I'll walk up to that body,

and that body will be Ellie.

She understands, she has the same fears.

All my Dead Hookers are Ellie,

All her Dead Little Girls are Lindsay.

Maybe one day,

both of them will see how much we care,

how much we worry,

How terrified we are that they will be our next scene.

Lindsay might,

But Ellie never will,

and I will live with this fear,

Until one day, unfortunately, I'll be right.


End file.
